These mountainous tomes guard the secret, I am sure of it! Twixt word and word, it lies in wait. More candles, boy! More ink! These notes may look arcane, but the infernal puzzle is revealing itself.
Storyteller cues
Other nightsIf the Demon killed the Sage, wake the Sage and point to 2 players, 1 of which is the Demon.
Jinxes
Each night*, the Leviathan chooses an alive good player (different to previous nights): a chosen Sage uses their ability but does not die.
The Recluse might register as the Demon to the Sage.
Each night*, Riot chooses an alive good player (different to previous nights): a chosen Sage uses their ability but does not die.
How to run it (Storyteller)
How to play
- Treat your information as a 50/50 at the moment you receive it: the Demon is definitely one of two players, so immediately cross-reference with every other claim on the board before going public — corroborating or eliminating one of your two names with another player's information is what converts a 50/50 into a near-certain accusation.
- Timing of your reveal matters enormously: sharing your pair the moment you receive it gives the town the longest window to act, but it also tells the Demon's team exactly how much you know, letting them pivot quickly — weigh whether the pair itself is damning enough to justify early disclosure.
- If one of your two players is already under heavy suspicion or has a shaky claim, push hard on them; if both seem clean, hold the pair privately and probe each for contradiction before accusing, since a public 50/50 that the evil team knows about gives them maximum time to construct alibis.
- Do not assume you are safe just because the Demon wants your info: some Demons will deliberately avoid killing you to keep your ability locked away, so consider whether staying quiet forces the Demon to kill you and hand you the information sooner rather than later.
- The single most common mistake is treating your pair as a confirmed Demon accusation rather than a narrowed pool — announcing 'the Demon is one of these two' while ignoring that the Storyteller chose the second name freely can lead you to over-commit to the wrong nominee on the final day.
How to bluff as the Sage
- Announce your bluff only after a night death occurs — claim that the Demon killed you last night and you survived to share information, or more cleanly, time your claim for when you actually do die (from execution) and retroactively imply you had the information all along but withheld it strategically.
- Fake pair composition: name one confirmed-innocent townsfolk alongside your actual Demon partner or a sacrificial minion — this makes the pair look credible without endangering the real Demon, and it forces the town to execute or distrust a good player.
- If you are the Demon bluffing Sage, never name yourself in your fake pair; instead, name two townsfolk — one you plan to kill soon to muddy the waters, one who is already mildly suspected — so the pair looks plausible without pointing at evil.
- The tell that most exposes a fake Sage is claiming the ability activated on a night when no death occurred or when you clearly were not killed by the Demon — make sure your death source is consistent with Demon kills, not executions or other night abilities.
- A minion bluffing Sage can credibly claim they were visited by Riot or Leviathan if those are in the script, citing that they used their ability without dying — this is a hard-to-disprove cover story that also poisons discussion about whether those characters are in play.
Key interactions
The Recluse can register as the Demon when the Sage is killed, so the Storyteller may legitimately include the Recluse as one of the two players shown — town should not treat a Sage's pair as ironclad if a Recluse is on the script, since the Recluse name could be the 'guaranteed' slot rather than the actual Demon.
Riot triggers the Sage's ability each night it selects them without actually killing them, meaning a living Sage can accumulate repeated pairs across multiple nights — each pair still contains Riot as one of the two, so a Sage who fires multiple times and sees the same player appear in every pair has effectively confirmed Riot is in the game.
Like Riot, Leviathan activates the Sage's ability nightly without killing them, which means the Sage wakes and receives a pair containing Leviathan — if the Sage is alive and receiving pairs but no Demon kill has happened publicly, it is a strong signal that Leviathan is the Demon and the pair is reliable.
A Philosopher who copies Sage retains the ability even after dying, so if the Demon kills the Philosopher-Sage, the Philosopher still wakes and receives the pair — this is a powerful late-game outcome since the Philosopher's death is often less telegraphed than a known Sage's, potentially catching the evil team off-guard.